For too long we had watched them fade, the flickering lights
That led along corridors to an empty palace,
Till in the end, even the monuments of nature seemed
Part of a conspiracy of universal malice.

Night seemed unassailable with its endless galaxies,
The last gateway through which we could arrange an exit,
But that silence, which should have greeted the first
tremulous footfall,
Is shattered now by the measured murmur of the heart beat.